Clearing out my notes

For years I've kept a computer file with notes for writing.  It contained brief story descriptions, character sketches and interesting lines, some salvaged from failed stories.  The file grew to a few thousand lines, with some entries that were years old.

As part of my general decluttering I've now eliminated the file.  I've taken out the ideas that suggest viable stories, moved some notes into works-in-progress and the rest are gone.  I think that having the file was more of a distraction than an aid.  Sometimes things were written in the file rather than take the time to write a fast draft and ended up never being written; other times I wrote things in the file rather than consider them properly at the time.

I'm very excited.  I now have a set of short stories that are no longer hidden amongst weeds and rubbish.  Over the next few weeks I'll see which ones grow into something interesting.  Clutter is never good.

Reading at Sparks Night on December 9th

I'm reading at Jo Horsman's next Sparks night, on December 9th at the Three and Ten in Brighton.  I'm very excited, as I'm reading alongside some very interesting people.  The line-up features Vanessa Gebbie, Jenn Ashworth, Kuzhali Manickavel, Pam Hewitt and Jacqueline Cattaneo.  I'm going to be reading a story called 'A Bad Place to Stick Your Hand'.  Tickets are £5.

"I was supposed to meet my family a couple of hours before the funeral but I ran late because of
work.  Everyone smiled when they saw me and I soon found out why: in my absence they'd decided
I would be doing the eulogy."

The 2008 Brooks Brighton 10K

Yesterday was the Brighton Brooks 10K race, which went very well.  I started further back than I wanted, meaning the first couple of kilometers were like Churchill Square on a Saturday.  Once past the crowd I could go faster and made up for lost time.  It was actually one of the easiest runs I've had (maybe because of the slow pace at the start) and I had lots of energy left for the finish. I was delighted to come in at 790th (by gun time – by chip time I came in 720th) at under 47 minutes – I knew I was faster than usual but not how fast.   I'm mostly recovered now but I'll take a few days off then switch down to practising 5K runs ready for the Santa Dash.

After the race (and still wearing my shorts) I visited the Art @ Taylor Made gallery where Jake Spicer was doing a live painting of Rosy.  I've often looked at paintings but not painting – it was fascinating to watch Jake picking out what information to put on canvas.  I'll post a photo of that when I get back to Brighton.

I had a long coach ride to Derby but I had lots of distractions- a history of boo.com, the West Wing and the BBC documentary on Hugh Everett (the "human interest" side was brilliant, but I wasn't sure about the physics explanations).  I wouldn't have survived without headphones to block out the people making long chatty mobile calls.  Maybe I do need an MP3 player after all?

I'm now in Derbyshire for a few days, relaxing and catching up with some friends.  I'm impressed that my sister has learned by heart the novel Each Peach Pear Plum

Why I love Brighton

I saw the sign below while walking home on Monday:

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I missed all of the Halloween festivities this year, but it's good to know they're going on.  The same evening I also saw a poster for Brighton Wok (click for a larger version):

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I was amused to see the poster quoting this weblog.  I stand by that comment – I have no desire to watch Iron Man a second time but I will be at the Duke Of York's on Saturday for the Brighton Wok screening, even though I have it here on DVD.  Iron Man may have starred Robert Downey Jr. but Brighton Wok's Ninja Flakes were more creative than anything I saw in Iron Man.

Also this week, I've noticed one of those little signs of aging.  I no longer have to say no to the flier touts near the HSBC on North Street.  They don't even offer me their fliers now.  Guess I'm too unhip for dance clubs now.

‘Making Presentations’ workshop with Ellen de Vries

On Thursday night I went to a Making Presentations workshop at the Werks, run by the copywriter and poet Ellen de Vries.  I wanted to go because my recent Barcamp presentation didn't work as well as I'd hoped.  I figured it would be good to learn what I might be missing.

Nine people attended the workshop, split into two groups.  We were asked to introduce ourselves with just our name and job titles to see what conclusions people drew from them.  This was a little weird for me, since I'm still on sabbatical and had to invent a title.  Everyone else sounded very fancy.

The course covered a lot of material in two and a half hours, including defining objectives, understanding the audience, not presenting after lunch and the use of adult education theories.  The workshop format worked well, allowing people to share their own experiences and tips.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I have a chance to present again – I'm looking forward to putting what I learned into action.

Sadly I'm going busy when Ellen's doing her next course on DIY Copywriting, but would be going if I was free. 

Vodafone proxy breaks some Javascript

I've been generally very happy with my vodafone USB modem, particularly after the unpleasant problems with Tiscali.  The Vodafone modem even works on Ubuntu, despite not being officially supported.  However, I have had problems with Javascript on a couple of sites.  They would work fine through non-Vodafone connections but break when used through Vodafone.

Thanks to David Pashley, I've now learned the problem.  Vodafone transform some of the content they deliver over the web.  One effect is degraded image quality (discussion of the problem and its solution in Germany is here and here).  The other problem is their use of minify, which is breaking some sites.  This was breaking the JQuery library included in a site of David's I use.

We resorted to loading the libraries over HTTPS, which is not a good general solution but works in this case.  Meanwhile I thought I'd make this entry in case it provides a pointer for anyone facing similar problems.

(Aplogies for the technical post.  If you've read this far and are disappointed, here a link to a kitten video —>  kittens )

Some short stories from the web

I've recently found some excellent short stories on the web.  The list was somehow lost in draft status but it's all fixed now.  I've also added approximate wordcounts for each piece – none are long, and all are worth reading:

Some odds and ends

  • The poet Rosy Carrick, a good friend of mine, now has a weblog at http://rosycarrick.blogspot.com/.  Her latest post includes a poem and gossip about our poet laureate.
  • I'm going to be reading at the next Sparks night, which is now on December 7th.  Some of the previous readings are available on video via this page.  I'll give more details nearer the time.
  • I've still not manage to memorise any of my pieces, but I have been running more lately.  The wind was bitterly cold this morning.

Playing darts in Antarctica

"In the winter [the base] held radio darts contests with other bases.  After a couple of years of competition someone went to Bird Island and discovered that the small scientific station there, its occupants always keen participants, had never had a dartboard there."

from Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler

(Terra Incognito was one of the books I used last year in my dissertation.  It's one of my favourite books on Antarctia, along with Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the world.)